12 Aug Throughout this course, you have been analyzing the different facets of two organizations (GE and Alibaba) strategic development and implementation. This week you will pull all of th
Week 5 Project
Instructions
Course Project Task 5 Final Submission
Note: This course has major project assignments that will be due in Week 3 and 5. It will take more than a week's effort to adequately complete them. Plan time to start the research and other work for those assignments earlier than the week in which they are due.
Throughout this course, you have been analyzing the different facets of two organizations’ (GE and Alibaba) strategic development and implementation. This week you will pull all of these elements together, including the material you read this week about strategic leadership. This is a critical exercise as the final written work in the MBA capstone course.
Although we broke up the topics we studied about corporate strategy into manageable chunks, remember that in reality business firms function and compete as integrated wholes. The various elements of business and corporate strategy we discussed and analyzed create value for shareholders when they complement one another. In particular, the logic of business strategy in general must be congruent with the particular firm’s overall strategies.
Develop an integrated analysis of the corporate strategy of your current workplace organization, a previous employer, or an organization you would like to work for. Reach out to your instructor early in the week (or earlier in the course) if you need assistance identifying a suitable organization for your final study.
You should review the Course Project Guidelines document in the Supplemental Material below for more detail as needed. The following summary of the major sections of the paper should help you focus your project:
- Executive Summary—1-page synthesis of major ideas in the paper. What is the organization? What is its corporate strategy? What are one or two important pieces of rationale for having that strategy? What are one or two brief examples of how that strategy is (or isn't) accurately implemented? What are one or two important recommendations you can make to the organization about the strategic development and implementation of its corporate strategy. Remember, the executive summary is a brief review that someone can read and get a quick snapshot of key points in your paper.
- General Analysis of Corporate Strategy—1–2-page analysis of the organization’s corporate strategy. What is the corporate strategy? What is the rationale that management uses to guide its decisions and actions at the corporate level? What is the business logic and reasoning behind the formulation of that strategy?
- Formulation of Corporate Strategy—1–2-page assessment of appropriateness and congruence of the various elements of the corporate strategy. Does each part fit with the logic and rationale of the overall corporate strategy? Is there internal consistency in how the corporate strategy is formulated?
- Implementation of Corporate Strategy—2–3-page evaluation of decisions and actions actually made by management and of its ability to make those decisions consistent with the stated corporate strategy. Are the organization’s decisions and actions consistent with or inconsistent with its corporate strategy? Does it possess the resources and capability to follow its corporate strategy (i.e., “make it happen”)? Does alignment exist between its strategy and its leadership, structure, systems, and culture?
- Conclusions and Recommendations—1–2-page justification of consultant-type recommendations to the organization. Does the organization need to change its corporate strategy? Does it need to address congruence among the corporate strategy elements? Does it need to address how decisions and actions are made and implemented? Provide clear research, rationale, and appropriate examples to support your conclusions and recommendations.
Note: APA does not generally use an executive summary. However, consulting reports often do contain an executive summary. For purposes of this assignment, present the executive summary as the introduction paragraphs of your APA paper. Because the executive summary reflects information from the body of your paper, you will likely need to complete those sections before completing the executive summary.
Submission Details:
- Present your report as an 8–12-page Microsoft Word document formatted in APA style.
- Support your responses with examples. Cite any sources in APA format.
- Name your document MBA6999_W5_LastName_FirstInitial.doc
- Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.
Additional Materials
Course Project Guidelines © 2014 South University
Course Project Guidelines
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©2014 South University
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In the course project, you will analyse the corporate strategy of multibusiness organizations. Every week, you will analyze particular elements of a corporate strategy, culminating in an analysis of the strategy by the end of the course. This is where you put together all the work you have researched and completed in your assignments and the organizations mentioned in the course. Pay close attention to your final assignment and how you will wrap it up. The three overarching questions for this project are:
What is the business logic and rationale behind the corporate strategy?
How well do organizational decisions about formulating and implementing corporate strategy fit with that logic and rationale?
What recommendations would you make to the top management with respect to the decisions made in executing the corporate strategy?
Be mindful of these questions as you complete each week’s project tasks. Having an idea of how you will answer these questions will make writing your final integrated analysis much easier.
Tips for Writing
Both style and substance are important in written communication. Below are a few tips on style and substance. View these tips as examples of writing found in a high-quality, comprehensive report that still permits a great deal of freedom in terms of style and scope. Your report will be complex and your conclusions derived from many hours of research, thinking, and writing. Your objective is to communicate your learning to the reader concisely. Imagine that you're writing for a group of potential investors interested in learning about your chosen organization. You want to be complete, accurate, and objective in your observations and analysis. All your conclusions should be clear and well supported.
Inability to write effective business reports is one of the biggest weaknesses of managers. A well- organized report helps simplify complex subjects and shows clear thinking. To do well in this area, just recall the basics of good writing that you learned in high school and college.
As your paper will cover many different subjects, you should use section and subsection headings to mark transitions from one topic to another. Transitions between paragraphs make for easy reading. Each paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence and should stick to that topic. The complexity of your subject calls for simple sentence structure and the avoidance of jargon and unusual phrasing.
Tables, charts, and figures that illustrate especially complex points or support conclusions may be included in an appendix at the end of the report. Do not use an exhibit unless you refer to it in your paper. The source of the information in an exhibit must be shown in the exhibit. Proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar are essential. Ensure that the final document is proofread carefully (go beyond simply using spell-check). Be sure to use the APA format. A poorly written report signals to the reader that the substance is also questionable.
Course Project Guidelines
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The paper must not exceed 12 pages, single-sided, double-spaced with 1-inch
margins, and use 12-point font. Do not count the executive summary, title page,
table of contents, references, and appendices in the 12-page limit.
The work described here cannot be done quickly. The time you spend on revising
your paper will be apparent and will produce a superior report.
Suggested Outline
This outline is intended to give you an idea of the potential scope of your project. You
will need to adjust it to suit the specifics of your selected organization.
I. Title Page
The organization's name and your name should be highlighted here. The
course name and number and the date should also appear on this page.
II. Executive Summary
Begin your report by summarizing your findings in one single-spaced page. Do
not include supporting evidence here. The purpose of a summary is to stress
the highlights of the report for readers who want to know your conclusions but
do not have the time to go through the entire report.
III. Table of Contents
Begin numbering your pages here and continue consecutive page numbers
throughout the rest of the paper.
IV. General Analysis of the Corporate Strategy
In this section, address the first of the project's three overarching questions.
Write a clear overview of the organizational rationale behind the corporate
strategy. Do not discuss individual actions here. Set out the logic that the
management uses to guide its various decisions and actions at the corporate
level.
The items in this section should serve as touchstones in the analysis of those
strategic actions in the subsequent sections. Measured against this dominant
logic, the organization's actions, described in the following sections, can be
judged as "consistent" or "inconsistent" with its corporate strategy. These will
also be the comparison points for your recommendations in section VII. A
Course Project Guidelines
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well-argued section here will make the rationale for your recommendations
clear to the readers of your report.
V. Formulation of the Corporate Strategy
This section addresses the first part of the second overarching question. Begin your analysis of
the strategic actions undertaken while formulating its portfolio. Do not simply put these prior
analyses together sequentially. Instead, weave the three together into a single assessment.
Note that this is what the organization should be doing-thinking of all three areas
simultaneously when it makes a strategic decision in any one area.
Similarly, when you are evaluating each part's fit with the logic and rationale
of the corporate strategy, don't merely examine individual actions in isolation.
Emphasize the integrated assessment of the actions. In turn, compare this
integrated perspective on each action for internal consistency with the
corporate strategy logic you set out in section IV.
VI. Implementation of the Corporate Strategy
This section addresses the second part of the second overarching question. You
will want to build on your analysis in the previous section and address whether or
not this organization can "make it happen." If the organization lacks the
implementation capability, even the most rational and integrated corporate
strategy will be a failure.
In writing this part of the report, you wilI want to consider many issues, such as
whether the strategy wiII receive the support of investors. Pressure for
performance often forces organizations to implement suboptimal strategies that
produce the short-term results that Wall Street wants, while foregoing strategic
alternatives that could be more valuable in the long term. Similarly, you should
consider the strategic leadership capabilities and the fit of the organization's
structure, systems, and culture to its strategy. One of the management team's
most important responsibilities is creating these complementary alignments.
VII. Conclusions and Recommendations
This section is not simply a short wrap-up. Your recommendations must
incorporate both analysis in sections V and VI and the logic that guided the
decisions you set out in section IV. In doing this, you will want to employ the
tools you have developed during the course, showing that you know how to use
them and how to interpret what they indicate when applied to a situation. Your
recommendations need to address strategic issues, not functional ones.
Course Project Guidelines
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You do not have to recommend changing the corporate strategy. Whether you
recommend no, few, or many changes, your recommendations should be
backed by logical arguments supported by reliable and comprehensive
information. Be sure to explain why your proposed alternative is superior to the
other choices.
VIII. References
Cite sources of all information and quotes using APA format. All reference
material used for the paper must be included in this section. All citations must
be complete; including information such as author names, titles, dates, volume
numbers, and page numbers. Electronic citations must include complete
website addresses.
IX. Appendices
You can include tables, graphs, and charts in appendices, as well as other
graphical exhibits. Remember that what you choose to include reflects your
understanding of what is important. Exhibits in the appendices can be critical in
supporting a verbal argument, or they can be trivial. Include information and
supporting material that strengthens the body of the paper, not those that are
merely fillers.
Weekly Project Tasks
Task 1: Corporate Strategy
Task 2: Acquisition Strategy
Task 3: International Strategy
Task 4: Cooperative Strategy and Competitive Advantage
Task 5: Final Submission—Integrated Analysis of Corporate Strategy
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